The New Normal: Climate Ambulance Chasing

By now, the pattern is pretty well established. If there is a famine, drought, catastrophic flood, wildfire, a major hurricane or typhoon, then you can be sure that trailing behind these disasters, like ambulance chasers, is a brigade of climate-concerned activists, scientists and their enablers in the media. And trailing behind them is an Anthony Watts/Marc Morano led brigade of chortling denialists, whose main objective is to exploit, for ideological/political purposes, the exploitation of disasters by the climate ambulance chasers. Much of this plays out like a game of charades. If I say "Somali famine," "Hurricane Sandy" or "Australian bushfires" to the ambulance chasing disaster chasers, they yell: Climate Change! Carbon emissions! Similarly, if I say "climate treaty obstacles" to this same group, they shout: Koch! Fox News! If I say climate science to the Watts/Morano brigade, they screech: Fraud! Hoax! And if I say carbon dioxide to this same group, they blurt out: Photosynthesis! Good! How did we get to this point? Well, the politicized aspect of climate change is well known to those who follow the debate closely. A subset of this politicization is the increasing focus on extreme weather (and disasters). In recent years, we've seen climate advocates and some climate scientists repeatedly point to such events as a manifestation of global warming. A subsequent meme, known as the "new normal" was born, helpfully validated by the media. Last month a PBS post was titled: